Au Pied de Cochon: bonjour, canard en conserve!

Last weekend we took an almost-spontaneous (i.e. with only two weeks' notice) trip to Montreal. The drive up was a little rough — a six-hour trip after a full day's work — but we pushed onward, motivated by a constant drumming rhythm:

Duck-in-a-can, duck-in-a-can, duck-in-a-can ...

I wrote about our previous trip to Montreal, the highlight of which was dinner at Au Pied de Cochon, where The Boy realized his lifelong dream of eating poutine with foie gras and I discovered that my lifelong dream would be eating canard en conserve.

Now we were returning to fulfill that dream.

The only available table was at 9:00, which is later than we usually eat. So we prepared accordingly: we spent the day shopping on Rue Saint-Denis and took an afternoon nap. Oh, and we had an early lunch at Bières et Compagnie, a Belgian-style brasserie with 100 beers on tap and a lovely ostrich/duck/pheasant sausage plate:



(That was The Boy's lunch. I just had a simple salad.)



(Okay, it was loaded with Toulouse sausage. But salad nonetheless!)

Anyway, back to the main event.

Au Pied de Cochon was, as always, loud and busy. People at a long table in the window taking turns standing and making exuberant toasts. A group of six hip young guys, devouring plates of meat and passing around a plate of salad. An older guy with a graying ponytail and matching beard, looking like a world-weary corsair, steadily making his way through a plate of blood pudding.

We knew, of course, what our main objective was; but what else to order? Even with the best of intentions to be restrained, the menu at PDC almost dares you to try everything.

Come on, you haven't had the duck carpaccio before! What about the boudin and foie gras tart? Or the guinea fowl liver mousse? Or the Quebecois version of chicharrón, oreilles de crisse?

But we were good, and ordered salad.

Among other things.

Most notably, the cromesquis de foie gras:



They look innocent enough, don't they? But here's the deal: They're cubes of foie gras, breaded and deep-fried. The breading becomes an impermeable shell and the inside turns to liquid.

To eat, you put the whole thing in your mouth, close your lips, and bite. And suddenly it's as though the entire inside of your head is bathed in warm, soft, rich, deep, soothing liquid.

It actually, literally, seriously brought tears to my eyes.

As another snackeroo to begin, we ordered the plate of cochonailles. In fairness, we expected a small sampling of tasty pork bites. Earlier in the week, we were at Craigie on Main's Whole Hog dinner (see review from the people sitting behind us), where the tiny, delicate cochonailles looked like this:



So naturally we were surprised to find that at Au Pied de Cochon, the cochonailles looked like this:



Head-cheese terrine, two types of pâté (one of which is hidden beneath the bread), sausage, half a deviled egg, a lovely onion jam, something dolloped with mustard that I don't even remember, and that dark brown square, which is essentially salty beef-stock Jell-O.

But it's okay, because we also had salad.



Layers of fresh beets and goat cheese I could easily have eaten for dessert, had there been room for such a thing.

And then it came.



When they say "duck in a can," they mean it: the waiter brings a can, and a can-opener, and pours the contents out onto toast topped with celeriac puree.

My photographic skills are not sufficient, so I advise you check out Claudine's Flickr photo to see it in all its glory.

The magret: perfectly cooked, moist, meaty, delicious.
The foie gras: soft and tender and all the better for sitting in balsamic meat broth.

The cabbage: well, when the description essentially translates to "embuttered," what else needs to be said?

And despite the richness of the dish, serving it on toast somehow made it seem like home-cooked comfort food; as though there was really little difference between opening a can of duck and a can of beans to throw over toast for a quick lunch.

It was a luxurious and decadent experience, and one I highly recommend.

Interestingly, though, when I asked The Boy whether he'd order the same thing next time, he said no.

Not because he didn't enjoy it, of course (he later admitted he was disappointed that he had to share the foie gras with me; thanks, honey).

But as he pointed out, there are so many other things left to try: the foie gras burger. The lamb confit. The fries made with duckfat. The foie gras-stuffed pig's foot ...

A few final food-related vacation highlights

Our Montreal vacation now seems so long ago (two whole weeks; time does fly when you're, um, back at work). But I can't move on without mentioning a few more tasty highlights from the trip.

1) Breakfast at Eggspectation, Montreal
From the outside, this place looked like a sketchy chain diner. But after the previous day's Ritzy $100 breakfast for four--which worked out to about $10 per fried egg, plus juice and coffee--we were up for something (anything) cheaper.

Inside, it was cool and funky, all alterno-hip waitstaff, college radio music and exposed bricks and ductwork.



Eggspectation's menu is mostly, um, well, ovo-centric, with unusual takes on classics and some of their own creations. But there's also a plethora of carbs: bagels, waffles, crepes, French toast. And smoothies, including one of fruit and granola, which would make a sufficient breakfast by itself. (I, of course, ordered it as well as more solid food, and realized I couldn't manage the whole thing.)

The rest of my meal: Brioche Beauty, which was actually two sizable cinnamon rolls covered with yogurt, honey and almonds, served with a fresh fruit salad.



This, to me, is the epitome of breakfast: 50% healthy and nutritious, 50% sweet and decadent.

I'm so used to "fruit salad" that turns out to be awkward chunks of under-ripe melon with a few grapes thrown in; here, the strawberries had flavor, the kiwi wasn't sour and there were slices of mango and papaya.

Eggspectation is a Canadian franchise, with only a handful of locations in the US; our closest is South Portland, Maine. (They're in one other country: India.)

I'm not saying I'd want to make a trip north solely to eat there, but if we were in the area ...

2) Hotdog and poutine, Cité Souterrain, Montreal

I really don't think this needs an explanation.



3) Turkey dinner at The Parson's Corner

We were on our way back from Montreal, somewhere close to Nowhere, when we realized it was time for lunch, and took the next available exit off Rte. 91: Barton, Vermont. The pickings were slim--an ice-cream place, a Chinese resto called Ming's (which is always a dubious name to the English) and The Parsons' Corner, a pretty house that claimed to be a restaurant.



They stopped serving lunch at 2:30. It was 2:15. We hurried inside, and found a full-on diner counter, a guy slinging hash and the living- and dining-rooms converted into booth space.



I went for a straightforward grilled cheese sandwich; The Boy chose the steak and cheese sub. His dad ordered a burger, and his mom decided on the day's special: turkey dinner.



Everything was good, but the dinner was the winner, getting big points for nostalgia (canned peas! Gelatinous cranberry sauce!), for the silky mashed potato and gravy (doubtless both reconstituted, but who cares) and especially for--because there's no way you can fake this--the tender, moist, thick slices of roast turkey.

4) Scotch eggs in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
The last leg of our return trip included lunch in Portsmouth. We wandered the streets for a while and decided on the Portsmouth Gas Light Company, which has a look and vibe much like the Miracle of Science. The food was lovely, fresh and interesting.

But this isn't about that place. It's about the place I wanted to go, but which didn't open for another hour: The Coat of Arms, a British pub whose menu included not just yer usual faux-Anglo fish 'n' chips and bangers 'n' mash, but also a ploughman's lunch, sausage rolls, treacle pudding and custard and (gasp!) scotch eggs.

After lunch, as we were heading back to the car, I ran a quick errand.



I probably should have ordered them uncooked; they came hot, and they warmed my lap for the rest of the ride home. Sadly, we were too full to eat more, and didn't get to try them until the next day, when they were cold and a little tough and chewy: not at their best.

This just means we have to go back. And also try the treacle pudding.

Au Pied de Cochon: pig-out, Montreal style

The Boy's birthday coincided with our trip to Montreal, so when I asked where he wanted to go for his celebratory meal, he had an immediate answer: Au Pied de Cochon.

Both our previous Montreal trips had included visits to this palace of porkiness; it's one of those restaurants that, when brought up in conversation, causes a Pavlovian reaction for us. And we were pretty sure The Boy's parents would approve. (They did. Oh, boy, they did.)

Au Pied de Cochon is a long, narrow, noisy room, with clusters of tables at both ends and a bar that runs the length of the intervening space. If you sit at the bar, you get to watch the chefs at work in the tiny kitchen.

On past visits, we've sat at a table in front, squished between other diners and subject to waiter traffic. This time, we got a table at the back of the room, which felt a little calmer (though no less cacophonous).



We started with a plate of cochonailles (which, as we learned from the pig-fest at Craigie Street Bistrot, kind of translates to "little bits of porkular loveliness"). And then to the main event.

The Boy's mom went for the signature dish, a fabulous plate of pig's foot braised until fall-apart tender, with pommes purées and a crispy mushroom-cream-filled cake.



The Boy's dad had the lamb shank confit.



Do I even need to say how gloriously moist and juicy and fatty it was? (Wanna make it yourself? Here's a recipe. Stock up on duck fat.)

I had the PDC Melting Pot, a crock stuffed with pommes purées topped with garlic pork sausage, blood sausage, pork belly and bacon, as well as a couple of sweet roasted onions. Yes, it looks obscene. No, I couldn't eat the whole thing, though I gave it a damn good try.



And The Boy?

On our first visit, he'd considered getting the poutine with foie gras because it seemed so decadent. On our second--having actually tried poutine--he thought about it but passed for something else. And then we made our own version of posh poutine at home, and he came to fully grasp its potential.

When we started to talk about taking his parents to Montreal, he mentioned the poutine with foie gras. When we discussed going to Au Pied de Cochon, he observed that they had poutine with foie gras.

And so, finally, he got what he wanted. It may look like hell, but it tastes like heaven.



Au Pied de Cochon is a fun, lively place. (And loud. Did I mention it's loud?) The crowd is young and hip, the staff are cute in a tousled punk/pirate sort of way, and the restroom is awesome:



Yes, that's a full-on dishwashing sink with rinsing nozzle. And yes, the hand towels are in a steam table.

Oh, and they have a dish called canard en conserve--or, en anglais, the less-romantic-sounding duck in a can. The adorable chef/waiter couple from Toronto, sitting at the next table (close enough that we could follow their conversation, apparently) ordered it, and we got to watch as it was served. From the can. A can-opener is involved.

I wasn't able to take photos, so I direct you to Claudine's gorgeous frame-by-frame reveal on Flickr. And take a look at the rest of her PDC set; her camera skeelz are much better than mine!

Anyway, we have to go back. We still haven't tried the duck carpaccio, or the bison tongue, or the venison tongue, or the (gasp!) pied de cochon stuffed with (gasp!) foie gras, or ...

Posh poutine

Avid readers (both of you) may recall that our inaugural experience with parmo, much-loved post-booze nosh of North East England, led us to create our own upscale version, aka posh parmo.

It should hardly come as a surprise, then, to learn that we unleashed a new taste sensation on the land last night: posh poutine.

(The only real surprise is that it took us so long to get around to it.)

Poutine is to Montreal as parmo is to Middlesbrough, and I suspect My People would recognize its beauty. The basic ingredients are french fries, cheese curds and gravy, though you can add anything else that seems appropriate (bacon, sausage, foie gras).

The cheese curds are a key ingredient, and they're usually hard to find in these parts, being more of a Midwestern delicacy. But The Boy, genius that he is, located a shipment in Trader Joe's. Suddenly, anything was possible.

Our posh version began with organic russet potatoes, cut into fries, tossed in olive oil and baked in the oven.

Wisconsin cheese curds: check.

Gravy: check. (Okay, we cheated a little on that, and used instant gravy. But it was a nice British lamb version with a hint of fresh mint.)

And for a little something extra: organic lamb sausage with black olives, pine nuts and feta. Not stricly authentic, it's true, but sometimes you have to go a little crazy.

The result:



What?

Okay, you think that's bad? Then know this, my friend: The Boy took the leftovers to work today. For lunch. In a sandwich.




Update: On reviewing the above with a fresh eye, I realize I failed to describe the experience of consuming this dish. Faced only with a couple of garish images, a casual reader could be forgiven for, perhaps, making gagging noises.

So allow me to elaborate.

This is, without doubt, comfort food, gastronomically unchallenging and emotionally satisfying. The fries, cooked skin-on, had a slightly crispy exterior, the insides soft and a little sweet.

I'd layered the curds among the fries, so the ones buried in the middle of the bowl melted, coating everything they touched with a gooey golden blanket, like the King Midas of cheese.

The sausage was exactly as I'd hoped, the lamb deep and satisfyingly meaty, the olives intensifying the flavor. And gravy. How can you say anything bad about gravy?